Carnelian half turned. ‘Tell them their lives will be spared if they submit to me.’
Sthax stepped forward to harangue the Oracles. Glancing back with shame, the ashen men crept forward and fell on their knees before Carnelian.
‘Take care of them, Sthax,’ Carnelian said, then stepped round the prone men, for, in the cave between the legs of the colossus, he had seen a single, pallid figure rising. He knew Morunasa by his proud bearing. As he neared the Oracle, Carnelian saw the ghostly shape of a Master lying naked on a bier at his feet. Even though the face was shadow, Carnelian knew it was Osidian.
Morunasa fixed him with crazed eyes. ‘Come closer and I’ll slay him.’
Carnelian glanced quickly to either side to make sure his companions knew to halt. He turned back to Morunasa. ‘If you harm him, your people will surely die.’
Morunasa gave a dry laugh, his lips curling up to reveal his needle teeth. His head jerked up. ‘What do I care for these traitors?’
‘ All your people will die.’
The cold grin died on Morunasa’s face to be replaced by a haunted look. Carnelian felt his heart stirring for this man at bay. ‘I’ve already promised him-’ He glanced round at Sthax, who was approaching. ‘Promised them all,’ he said, with a gesture taking in all the Marula warriors, ‘that I’ll do everything I can to save those in the Lower Reach.’
He held Morunasa’s gaze as the man tried to see into his heart. Morunasa seemed to find what he sought, for his head dropped and the tension left his limbs. He looked down at Osidian, who Carnelian realized was wearing the oily Obsidian Mask. Morunasa lifted his head, smiling defiantly, but Carnelian could see the man had little fight left in him. Morunasa raised his arms, bared his ravener teeth, then, with a lunge and a vicious twist of his head, he tore first one of his wrists open, then the other. His arms dropped, blood glistening in cords down his pale palms, to pour in skeins from his fingers. Instinctively Carnelian brought his own scabbed wrists together as if he were feeling Morunasa’s pain. He stepped forward, his foot slipping on the blood pooling around Morunasa’s feet. He held the man’s gaze once more, then knelt beside Osidian. His scrutiny took in the new wounds they had cut to put in the maggots, patterning the white flesh between the shadows of the old scars. He gazed at the gleaming, perfect black face that made it seem as if Osidian was one with the colossus towering above them. He reached forward to remove it, wanting to throw it away, to look upon Osidian’s face.
‘No! It is forbidden!’ cried an unhuman voice.
Carnelian turned and saw a homunculus watching him, the figure of his master rising behind with his long silver mask. He considered for a moment defying the Sapient even as he questioned his fear at giving them back their power. He answered himself: Enough of the world is already broken. He became aware other homunculi were moving past him into the shadows beyond. Then he saw the frieze of what seemed skulls beneath the colossus. Grand Sapients. The Twelve slumped against the stone of the column, the odour of excrement and urine coming off them.
‘Let’s get him out of here.’
Carnelian saw it was Fern. They lifted Osidian between them and carried him out of the gloom. As they laid him down, Fern put an ear to his chest. He looked up. ‘He lives.’
Carnelian nodded, but was watching the Grand Sapients being helped up by their homunculi. The ancients leaned upon them like infirm parents. But even as they rose, their hands quested for their children’s throats. The homunculi began to make sounds, half-words, mutterings, as if their masters, drowning, through them were coming up gulping for air.
Carnelian looked up at the small bodies on the netting. They were covered with the fresh wounds into which maggots had been introduced. Some of them had their eyes open, glassy with terror. He left Osidian to Fern, called for Sthax and soon Marula were swarming up to free the children. Carnelian watched, agonized, as one by one they were released, passed down from hand to hand. As he caught a little girl, he winced at how cold and clammy she was; at the tremor in her tiny body.
Even as he helped, his attention was more and more being drawn to the Wise. They had regained their composure. The Twelve, in a line, were confronted by another line of Sapients. Between them, a double interface of homunculi. The Grand Sapients were reconnecting to their Domains. As Carnelian approached them, still reviewing his decision, he heard the rattling vocalizations of the homunculi. A constant, frantic stream of apparently meaningless syllables interspersed with the muttering of the Grand Sapients’ receptive homunculi, through whose throats their masters were receiving who knew what volume of data. Carnelian glanced back at Osidian, lying inert. He refocused on the Wise. It was up to him. Should he try to take control of them? If he did not, how might they take advantage of the situation?
Suddenly, one of the Grand Sapients choked his homunculus silent and began prodding instructions into its neck. Soon others, terminating the receptive mode, were turning their homunculi to transmission. The homunculi that had been speaking fell silent and were soon murmuring an echo to the questions the Grand Sapients were voicing through their homunculi. There was a tension in the fingers of the Grand Sapients as they worked their voices’ necks. Questions and answers shuttled back and forth, homunculi speaking all at once, so that Carnelian was amazed that anything coherent could be being communicated by means of such cacophony. Yet its frantic tone was infecting him with an increasing foreboding. The flow quietened to a murmur, then silence. The Twelve turned their empty eye sockets towards Carnelian. They nodded.
‘Celestial?’ sang one of their homunculi.
For a moment Carnelian could find no words, unnerved by their corpse stares. ‘What news?’
‘The City at the Gates is overrun by sartlar.’
Carnelian’s stomach clenched. Some part of him had known this was what they were going to say.
‘What happened to the legions dispatched to disperse them?’
The Twelve realigned in a row, facing him. Examining their staves, he deduced it was Tribute who now spoke to him.
‘It appears, Celestial, contact with them has been lost.’
‘This certainly seems to be the case,’ said another homunculus at one end of their line. The staff it held bore a smouldering red cross. For a moment, Carnelian was shocked, then realized this was not Legions returned from the dead, but merely his successor.
‘… we shall have to verify the integrity of our systems, Celestial.’
‘Some degradation in their functioning is to be expected in this disorder,’ Tribute said.
Carnelian fought his rising dread. ‘What does “overrun” mean?’
The twelve homunculi echoed his words, murmurously.
‘Sartlar are vermin,’ said Tribute.
Carnelian did not consider this much of an answer. If they were still in the vicinity of Osrakum, the creatures must be desperately hungry.
‘Additionally, these instruments of chaos must be destroyed.’
Carnelian wished they would shut up and let him think. ‘Do you mean the Marula?’
‘They have put unclean hands upon the God Emperor, upon us.’
Carnelian knew he must not give way to anger. He must think. Who knew how long it would be before Osidian regained consciousness? If Ykoriana discovered his condition, could she resist seizing power in the Labyrinth? He looked at the Wise. Dare he let them deal with the sartlar? No, he knew too well how pitiless were their methods. He must assume the agreement he had made with Osidian and Ykoriana would hold. The outer world was his responsibility. His father too would have to wait.
He raised his eyes to the Twelve. ‘You will not touch the Marula. I shall take them away with me.’
‘Away, Celestial?’